Sorry Marc, Olestra is a polyester regardless of what you think.
Please see below:
{excerpted from TIME Magazine, "ARE WE READY FOR FAT-FREE FAT?"
By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK
January 8, 1996 Volume 147, No. 2}
...They eventually came up with sucrose polyester, a class of
compounds that sports as many as eight fatty acids crowded around
alcohol groups that hang, in turn, off a ring of sucrose
molecules. By contrast, the naturally occurring fats known as
triglycerides include just three fatty acids.
Why does the body digest and absorb triglycerides but not a sucrose
polyester such as olestra? Both types of molecule,
explains P&G chemist Ron Janacek, are too large to pass unaltered
through the mucous membrane of the small intestine and
into the bloodstream. With triglycerides, an intestinal enzyme known as
lipase acts as a kind of molecular scissors, fitting
into slots between the fatty acids and snipping them apart. But when
there are too many fatty acids clumped too close
together, as happens with olestra and other types of sucrose polyester,
these slots are concealed and the enzyme cannot do its
job.
For full text of article:
http://pathfinder.com/@@TxsMuYHfQQAAQFuL/time/magazine/domestic/1996/960
108/cover.html